They called him “Possum” when he was a nipper and the moniker stuck  throughout his fine athletic career in the fields of hockey, football, baseball and hockey. Born in Collingwood, he was a son of the late Herb Swain, one of this town’s best baseball pitchers for over a twenty year span.

He first gained recognition as a plunging halfback on the Collingwood Collegiate
Junior Football team in 1929. That year the juniors played eight games going undefeated by lop sided scores.

In 1933 and 1934 he was a key player with the C.C.I. seniors, Central Ontario
Secondary School Senior Finalists.

His baseball career started in 1931 with Collingwood. Thornbury lured him away in
1932 but he was back in Collingwood in 1934. His baseball career reached its crescendo in 1935 when the Collingwood Shipbuilders won the Ontario Intermediate “A” championship. Stan was the team’s second baseman, the key man in the Shipbuilders famed double play combination.

In 1936, he went to Penetang but came back to play with Meaford in 1940 and
Collingwood in 1941.

He commenced his hockey career with the East End Fishermen in the old Collingwood Junior Hockey League and played five years with the Collingwood Juniors before going back to Penetang to play Intermediate in 1936. He finished off his hockey career with Kirkland Lake Bird Goldmine and Omega in 1937-38-39 in Senior O.H.A. Stan starred at basketball at the C.C.I. for 5 years. The 1933 senior team went to the Central Ontario Secondary School Senior basketball final.

Huck Caesar was only a lightweight in physical proportions but he was “giant” on a baseball diamond. He never weighed any more than 135 pounds soaking wet
but he hit more balls for extra bases than any other Collingwood ball player we ever saw or knew.

He covered centre field like a blanket and ran the bases like a gazelle. As tough as leather, his active playing career lasted thirty-seven years and he spent two decades of the amazing career on Collingwood baseball, softball, hockey and lacrosse teams. He was the driving force on the great Collingwood baseball team of 1935, winners of the John Ross Robertson Trophy and the All- Ontario Intermediate baseball championship – the only Collingwood ball team to win a provincial intermediate title.

Born in the village of Proton in 1903, Huck moved to Alliston with his parents in 1908. He made the Alliston team at age fifteen and helped the club win three
league titles in 1924-25-26.During his career, he played in several hundred tournaments for various teams.

The Bank of Toronto moved him to Havelock in 1926 where he played baseball and hockey. Collingwood claimed him in 1927, but this town had no baseball club that year and Huck signed Creemore and later played with Thornbury for six years.

During his stay in Collingwood he helped organize the Senior Softball League where he managed and starred with the Bankers, five-times champions. He played
intermediate hockey for the Shipbuilders in the thirties and even took a crack at lacrosse, when that game made a brief comeback in the depths of the depression.

When intermediate baseball went into a decline in Collingwood in the late thirties, he played five years with Meaford and helped that town with the Ontario championship in 1939.

Huck left Collingwood in 1947 but he kept playing baseball and was with the Watford intermediate champs in 1947 and 1948. He was still playing at fifty-five and after his retirement, he wound up his diamond career by coaching his home town Alliston team to Ontario Midget title in 1957.

There was no question about the Collingwood Athlete of the Year Award back in 1935. Deverde “Smokey” Smith won the honours hands down!

Deverde came from down eastern Ontario way with a infectious smile. Nobody paid him particular attention until he turned up at the Exhibition Park one day and he
wanted to try out for the junior baseball team.

Veteran baseball men like Huck Caesar, Dr. Bill Blakley, Father Hugh Ellard and Roy Burmister just couldn’t believe their eyes.

Here was a kid with magic in his left arm and only sixteen years old. His curve looked like the ball was coming at you from first base, the high hard one looked the size of an aspirin and his sinker dropped five feet from the point of delivery to the plate. That evening, this reporter hung the name “Smokey” on him and moniker stuck.

The kid became Collingwood’s skater that very day and baseball was back in Collingwood. I t was too late to build a title winning team that year but in 1935 Collingwood lured catcher Paddy Young away from Creemore as Smitty’s battery mate and the rest is sporting history.

In 1935, Smokey curve balled the Shipbuilders to the Ontario championship and in the process defeated Penetang’s, Phil Marchildon, who was destined to star in the American League with Conny Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics, seven out of nine times with two more games ending in ties.

He pitched a perfect game against Coniston in the Semi-final round and had two more no-hit no-run games in the regular Georgian Bay League schedule. His 1935 pitching record with 22 wins – 3 losses while striking out 310 batters. He went on to a professional career in the Canadian-American League and had the pleasure of beating Marchildon in the same league 2-1 in a game that went 12 innings.

Deverde did not seriously pursue a pro career and he hung up the glove after joining the Ontario Provincial Police.